ArticleBehavioural brain research2021
Alterations in fear extinction neural circuitry and fear-related behavior linked to trauma exposure in children.
Article in Behavioural brain research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- How childhood adversity affects components of decision making.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Neurobiological Signatures of Dyadic Transmission of Fear Extinction in Adolescent Trauma Exposure and Posttraumatic Stress.Biological psychiatry global open science · 2026Article
- Virtual reality-based stress paradigms and early adversity: a scoping review of mechanisms and stress-response systems.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Review
- Developmental Differences in a Hippocampal-Cingulate Pathway Involved in Learned Safety Following Interpersonal Trauma Exposure.Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2025Article
- How Fear Memory is Updated: From Reconsolidation to Extinction?Neuroscience bulletin · 2025Review
- Alterations in fear learning as a mechanism linking childhood exposure to violence with PTSD symptoms: a longitudinal study.Psychological medicine · 2024Article
- Facing ambiguity: Social threat sensitivity mediates the association between peer victimization and adolescent anxiety.Development and psychopathology · 2024Article
- Impact of Childhood Trauma Exposure, Genetic Variation in Endocannabinoid Signaling, and Anxiety on Frontolimbic Pathways in Children.Cannabis and cannabinoid research · 2023Article
- A proof-of-concept study of vicarious extinction learning and autonomic synchrony in parent-child dyads and posttraumatic stress disorder.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Through a Developmental Lens: Emerging Insights to Understand and Treat Pediatric PTSD.The American journal of psychiatry · 2023Review
- From childhood adversity to latent stress vulnerability in adulthood: the mediating roles of sleep disturbances and HPA axis dysfunction.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2023Review
- Predicting Fear Extinction in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Brain sciences · 2023Article
- Getting Better with Age? A Review of Psychophysiological Studies of Fear Extinction Learning Across Development.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023Review
- Fear Extinction Learning in Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2023Article
- Psychotherapeutic Change Mechanisms and Causal Psychotherapy: Applications to Child Abuse and Trauma.Journal of child & adolescent trauma · 2022Article
- Functional imaging correlates of childhood trauma: A qualitative review of past research and emerging trends.Pharmacology, biochemistry, and behavior · 2021Review
- Safety learning during development: Implications for development of psychopathology.Behavioural brain research · 2021Review
- Anxiety, fear extinction, and threat-related amygdala reactivity in children exposed to urban trauma.Journal of experimental psychopathologyArticle
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
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Abstract
Exposure to childhood trauma is extremely common (>60 %) and is a leading risk factor for fear-based disorders, including anxiety and posttraumatic stress disorder. These disorders are characterized by deficits in fear extinction and dysfunction in underlying neural circuitry. Given the strong and pervasive link between childhood trauma and the development of psychopathology, fear extinction may be a key mechanism. The present study tests the impact of childhood trauma exposure on fear extinction and underlying neural circuitry. Children (N = 44, 45 % trauma-exposed; 6-11 yrs) completed a novel two-day virtual reality fear extinction experiment. On day one, participants underwent fear conditioning and extinction. Twenty-four hours later, participants completed a test of extinction recall during fMRI. Conditioned fear was measured throughout the experiment using skin conductance and fear-related behavior, and activation in fear-related brain regions was estimated during recall. There were no group differences in conditioned fear during fear conditioning or extinction learning. During extinction recall, however, trauma-exposed children kept more distance from both the previously extinguished and the safety cue, suggesting poor differentiation between threat and safety cues. Trauma-exposed youth also failed to approach the previously extinguished cue over the course of extinction recall. The effects on fear-related behavior during extinction recall were accompanied by higher activation to the previously extinguished cue in fear-relevant brain regions, including the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex and anterior insula, in trauma-exposed relative to control children. Alterations in fear-related brain regions and fear-related behavior may be a core mechanism through which childhood trauma confers heightened vulnerability to psychopathology.
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